1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus for displaying hierarchical paths of a folder etc.
2. Description of the Related Art
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-232920, a method has been proposed in which in hierarchical information, such as a path of a file or a folder, being displayed, when the information does not fit in a display area, the number of characters of the information is limited to display the information in an abbreviated manner. In addition, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-232920, a method has been also proposed in which information in a deepest level of a hierarchy is displayed, but information in the other levels of the hierarchy is displayed in the abbreviated manner so as to fit in a display area. For example, in a case where path information, such as “AAAA/BBBB/CCCC/DDDD”, does not fit in a display area, the path information is displayed in the abbreviated manner as “A . . . /B . . . /C . . . /DDDD”. Note that “AAAA/BBBB/CCCC/DDDD” represents a hierarchical structure in which a folder “BBBB” exists under a folder “AAAA”, a folder “CCCC” under the folder “BBBB”, and a folder “DDDD” further under the folder “CCCC”. The character “/” denotes a delimiter of a path.
However, there has been a problem that a suitable technique for easily determining path information of a folder does not exist. For example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-232920, information of an intermediate hierarchy is displayed in the abbreviated manner, and thus it becomes ambiguous that information in the deepest level of a hierarchy specifically belongs to which name's hierarchy. Therefore, in a display device that displays a list arranging a plurality of path information of folders, when folders with a same folder name in the deepest level of the hierarchy are displayed, it becomes difficult to determine differences of the folders from one-up folder names. For example, when pieces of path information of two different folders of “AAAA/BBBB/CCCC/DDDD” and “AAAA/BBBB/C123/DDDD” are displayed side by side in a list, abbreviations thereof are both “A . . . /B . . . /C . . . /DDDD”. Therefore, it becomes difficult to determine which path is a target folder, from the abbreviated display “C . . . ” of the one-up folders for the folders “DDDD”.